Major's marriage proposal is a painting by the Russian artist Pavel Fedotov (1815–1852), painted in 1848. It is owned by the State Tretyakov Gallery (inv. 5210). The size of the painting is 58.3×75.4 cm.Государственная Третьяковская галерея — каталог собрания / Я. В. Брук, Л. И. Иовлева. — М.: СканРус, 2005. — V. 3: Живопись первой половины XIX века. — pp. 310-311. — .Федотов Павел Андреевич — Сватовство майора, 1848 (HTML). Государственная Третьяковская галерея — www.tretyakovgallery.ru. Дата обращения: 8 June 2021. Archive: 28 October 2020.
Pavel Fedotov began to work on the canvas "Major's marriage proposal" (also known as "The Major's Marriage") in 1848; the painting was completed in the same year. In the fall of 1849, the canvas, titled "Correction of Circumstances, or Matchmaking", was exhibited at the Academy of Arts along with two other earlier paintings by the artist, "The Fresh Cavalier" (1846) and "The Discerning Bride" (1847). According to Alexander Benois, Fedotov's paintings had "a colossal success at the exhibition, unprecedented since the time of 'Pompeii". The Academy of Arts awarded Fedotov the title of Academician for his painting "Major's marriage proposal".
Art historian Galina Leontieva wrote that "Major's marriage proposal" is "one of the most remarkable works of Russian painting of the first half of the 19th century", which "due to the amazing truth of the characters, the significance of the problem raised in it turned out to be much more serious than the original idea of the artist". The art historian Dmitry Sarabianov called the painting "one of the highest achievements of Fedotov in the field of pictorial art".
A variant of "Major's marriage proposal", which the artist worked on in 1850-1852, is kept in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg (canvas, oil, 56×76 cm, inv. Zh-4521).Государственный Русский музей — каталог собрания / Г. Н. Голдовский. — СПб.: Palace Editions, 2007. — V. 3: Живопись первой половины XIX века (К—Я). — P. 178. — .Государственный Русский музей — Живопись, XVIII — начало XX века (каталог). — Л.: Аврора и Искусство, 1980. — pp. 328-329.Федотов П. А. — Сватовство майора, около 1851 (HTML). Виртуальный Русский музей — rusmuseumvrm.ru. Дата обращения: 8 June 2021. Archive: 22 April 2021. Although the subject and composition are generally preserved, the version in the Russian Museum has a number of significant differences from the painting in the Tretyakov Gallery.
History At the end of 1843 Pavel Fedotov, who had served about ten years in the Finnish Life Guards Regiment resigned, settled on line 16 of Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg and devoted himself entirely to artistic activity. Initially intending to become a military art painter, he soon realized that he preferred the genre art, within the framework of which he created a series of multi-figure sepia paintings in 1844-1846. In 1846, Fedotov created his first painting, "The Fresh Cavalier", and in 1847 he painted another canvas, "The Discerning Bride". In 1848 Pavel Fedotov began to work on the painting "Major's marriage proposal" (also known as "The Major's Marriage"), which was completed in the same year. At the request of Karl Bryullov, Fedotov received 700 rubles in commissions from the Imperial Academy of Arts to complete the painting, which could be used, among other things, for the models, costumes, and other materials. According to the sculptor Nikolai Ramazanov, who was a friend of the artist, while working on "Major's marriage proposal" Fedotov "did not allow himself to do anything without nature" — the bride's dress was specially ordered for the occasion; many other things, "down to the smallest detail", were bought or rented by him.
In October 1849, the canvas was shown at an exhibition of the Academy of Arts under the title "Correction of Circumstances, or Marriage Proposal". At the same exhibition, two other paintings by Fedotov were exhibited — "The Fresh Cavalier" and "The Discerning Bride". According to the artist and critic Alexander Benois, Fedotov's paintings presented at the academic exhibition "were a colossal success, unprecedented since the time of 'Pompeii'", earning "the enthusiastic approval not only of the public, but also, apparently by misunderstanding, of academic professors, including Karl Bryullov himself". For the painting "Major's marriage proposal" the Academy of Arts awarded the artist the title of Academician.
Fedotov wrote a poetic description of his painting, the so-called raceya, which he read to the visitors of the exhibition in 1849. According to other data, Fedotov first wrote a short poetic description, and a longer raceya with a detailed description of the painting was written by him for two personal exhibitions in Moscow in 1850, which presented the painting "Major's marriage proposal" — in the gallery of A. F. Rostopchin and in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.Государственная Третьяковская галерея — каталог собрания / Я. В. Брук, Л. И. Иовлева. — М.: СканРус, 2005. — V. 3: Живопись первой половины XIX века. — P. 401. — .
Subsequently, Fedotov sold the paintings "Major's marriage proposal" and "Fresh Cavalier" to Feodor Pryanishnikov, but received a much smaller sum for them than he had hoped for: initially he offered two thousand rubles for "Marriage Proposal", in the final transaction Pryanishnikov announced to the artist that he could pay only half; Fedotov, who was in financial difficulties, was forced to agree. Since then, the canvas "Major's marriage proposal" has been in Pryanishnikov's collection in St. Petersburg; in the description of his collection published in 1853, the painting appeared under the title "The Arrival of the Bridegroom". After Pryanishnikov's death in 1867, the painting was transferred to the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow; in its catalog, published in 1915, it had a double title — "The Arrival of the Bridegroom (Major's marriage proposal)". In 1925, after the dissolution of the Rumyantsev Museum, the painting was transferred to the State Tretyakov Gallery.
In 1850-1852 Fedotov painted a variant repetition of the painting "Major's marriage proposal" (alternatively titled "Watching in a Merchant's House"), which is now in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg (canvas, oil on canvas, 56×76 cm; earlier in the catalog as the date of creation of the painting "about 1851", the dating "1850-1852" was proposed in the catalog issued for the 1993 exhibition).Павел Федотов. К 175-летию со дня рождения. Каталог / М. Н. Шумова. — СПб.: Седа-С, 1993. — 280 p. — . Until 1870, this variant was in the collection of the Moscow patron Vasily Kokorev, and then — in the Tsarskoe Selo Alexander Palace, from where it was transferred in 1897 to the Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III (now — the State Russian Museum). According to the inscription on the back of the canvas made by the restorer A. Sidorov, the oil layer with the picture was transferred from the old canvas to a new one in 1886. Although the action and the position of the characters are generally preserved, the version in the Russian Museum has a number of significant differences from the painting in the Tretyakov Gallery.
Description
Plot and composition
In the mid-19th century, unequal marriages between impoverished nobles and wealthy merchants' daughters were common, despite the condemnation of secular society. Such convenience marriages, as well as the matchmaking associated with them, were repeatedly described in Russian literature of the 1830s and 1840s. In particular, Nikolai Gogol wrote in the story "Nevsky Prospekt": "There are officers who form a certain middle class of St. Petersburg society... In the upper class they are very rare, or rather never... Many of them, who teach in state institutions or prepare for state institutions, end up with a convertible and a couple of horses. Then their circle widens; they end up marrying a merchant's daughter who can play the piano, with a hundred thousand or so in cash and a bunch of fraternal relatives". Such a marriage could be seen as beneficial for both parties: the officer would receive a dowry that could be used to improve his financial situation, and the merchant would have the opportunity to be related to the nobleman and thus rise in the eyes of society.
The canvas depicts the interior of a rich merchant's house, open to the viewer like the space of a theater stage. Fedotov builds the composition of the painting in such a way that the viewer, as if observing the action from that side of the living room where the windows are, "involuntarily creates the feeling that we have inadvertently looked through the window and caught the owners of the house in a form not intended for the outsider's eye". On the right, in the doorway, stands the Major, brought by the matchmaker to ask for the hand of the merchant's daughter. Judging by the nature of the scene, the negotiations with the bride's parents had been conducted in advance by the matchmaker, and we see the future bridegroom's first visit to the merchant's house, where he is awaited with great impatience. Despite the fact that the guest's arrival has been expected, the room is in turmoil —the last preparations for the meeting are being made. In the central group— the merchant's daughter (the future bride) and her mother, the merchant himself stands behind, in the corner of the room. The scene is full of movement — the daughter, frightened and confused, rushes away, as if surprised by the appearance of the bridegroom. To prevent her from running away, she is held by her dress by her mother. In the left part of the room there is a table with hors d'oeuvres at which there are three minor characters — the cook, who puts kulebyaka on the table, as well as the sitter with a bottle of wine and a stout woman, who sticks out of the door. There are eight characters in the painting.
All the actors in the comedy of marriage depicted in the painting are permeated by a single action. According to the art historian Dmitry Sarabianov, Fedotov "gathered everything into a common mechanism, as if he had "spun" the action from a single starting point and "launched" it in different directions, making his characters move and interact with each other. In order to fully reveal the essence of his characters, the artist invents a situation in which each character is in special conditions, far from everyday life. In "Major's marriage proposal," this situation "appears on the canvas in extraordinary concreteness," and the moment that Fedotov places at the center of the plot, "torn from the event that is taking place in time, is so definite, convincing, it is so unconditional that the whole situation is not perceived as fictitious, composed," but, on the contrary, "is perceived as a kind of reality.
Striving for a harmonious combination of all the elements of the picture, Fedotov carefully builds the composition using the classical principles of symmetry and balance. A very important role is played by the distribution of light, which is used to emphasize the figures of the main characters — the merchant's daughter and the Major. In the central, brightest part of the canvas are the bride and her mother. The bride's dress, lighter than her mother's, helps to distinguish her from the central group as the main character. The Major also attracts the viewer's attention because his figure is contrajour, i.e. against the light, but at the same time his head is turned to the left, illuminating his face. The atmosphere of the action is also influenced by the dominant color in the painting, which consists of various shades of warm brown. In addition, there are various shades of white in the color scheme, which "permeate the painting as if 'sewn through'". In addition to the sitters, Fedotov also used a previously acquired mannequin with movable joints, dressing it in the clothes of various characters and giving it the required poses.